


Scoop

by poisonivory



Series: Go Vikings! [7]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Luke Cage (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 10:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8621341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonivory/pseuds/poisonivory
Summary: Foggy and Luke have a class project to work on together - if only Foggy can stop putting his foot in his mouth long enough to write it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic for my [Fandom Together drive](http://pluckyredhead.tumblr.com/post/153106184034/pluckyredhead-hi-friends-its-been-a-rough), for **likeadeuce** , who requested a Foggy/Luke first meeting where they impress and/or surprise each other, ideally in the Go Vikings! universe. You definitely don't have to have read the other fics in this series to follow this one - suffice to say it's a high school AU and the rest is unimportant. (Although it _is_ the debut of the Netflix characters in this 'verse, aw.)
> 
> Slight content warning for bullying, though it's stopped before anyone gets hurt.

“Okay. Enough clipping articles out of the paper and underlining the Who, What, When, Where, and Why,” Mr. Urich said at the beginning of class on Monday, after he collected their homework and sent Will Simpson to the vice principal’s office for suddenly flipping out and knocking his desk over for no reason. “I’m actually going to let you cubs write some articles.”

“Cubs?” Karen asked from the front row, sounding delighted. She _loved_ Journalism. Foggy just took it because it was the only elective that fit his schedule besides Shop, and he got enough handyman practice helping out at his dad’s store after school. Plus the less time spent avoiding Ivan Vanko and his bird, the better, especially around welding tools.

“Cub reporters. Old term. I’m dating myself,” Mr. Urich said. “Back when I started on the _Bugle_ …”

“Do we get to pick our partners?” Scott Lang interrupted from the back of the room.

Mr. Urich sighed. “No,” he said, and everyone groaned. “Yes, I know, I’m sorry, I’m ruining your social lives. You’ll get by.” He rolled up the world map hanging in front of the whiteboard to reveal a double column of names. “I’ve already paired you up randomly. I’ll be switching it up every week this semester, so if you’re working with your sworn enemy, deal with it for now. Each pair needs to give me a solid article by Friday, with all five Ws and properly sourced. No making things up.”

“Mr. Urich, how do we decide whose byline goes first?” asked Christine Everhart, who was the editor of the school paper and always made a point of reminding everyone in the room of that fact by dropping terms like “byline.”

“Work it out between yourselves. As long as there’s no blood shed, I really don’t care,” Mr. Urich said. “Now get to work.”

Everybody got up and made their way over to their assigned partner. Foggy barely paid attention, too busy frowning at the board. Given the choice, he would’ve paired with Karen, but she was stuck with Peter Quill, who was currently asleep in the back of the classroom. Which left Foggy squinting at the line that read: _Foggy Nelson + Carl Lucas._

Who the hell was Carl Lucas?

“I guess we’re together,” said a deep voice.

Foggy turned and looked up...and up, and up, and up, until his gaze reached a handsome, serious face. Luke Cage. Hadn’t gone to their school last year. Rumor mill said he’d been in juvie. _Wow_ , his t-shirt was tight.

“Luke Cage” wasn’t “Carl Lucas,” but they had a syllable in common, and everyone else was already paired off. Foggy swallowed.

“I guess we are,” he said.

*

“So, um, Luke - uh, Carl - uh…” Foggy started once they’d pulled their desks into a relatively quiet corner of the room, then lapsed into confused, embarrassed silence.

“Luke’s fine,” said...well, Luke, apparently.

“Okay. Luke. Cool. You can call me Foggy. I mean, Franklin’s my real name, but most people call me Foggy. But either one is fine. Just don’t call me late to dinner!”

Luke stared at him. Foggy cringed.

“Right, so...what do you want to write about?” Foggy asked. “There’s, uh...oh, student council elections are coming up, I think Steve Rogers and Justin Hammer are both running for president. We could talk to them. Or a puff piece, we could interview one of the staff who’s been here a million years, like the librarians or Josie in the lunchroom.” Josie claimed to hate all students but she always gave Foggy an extra pudding cup anyway so he could probably wheedle an interview. “I don’t know if we’re allowed to do Arts and Entertainment stuff but I guess we could ask Mr. Urich about reviewing a movie or covering this week’s football game or something…”

Luke raised an eyebrow and Foggy realized he was babbling again. He shut up.

“The game’s not until Friday afternoon and our article is due Friday morning,” Luke pointed out.

“Good point.” Foggy wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed to have an excuse not to try to interview Thor Odinson in the locker room. “Movie review?”

Luke shrugged. “I think the student council thing is better. I have work after school but I can probably talk to Rogers at lunch today or tomorrow if you want to talk to Hammer.”

Foggy wrinkled his nose. “I don’t think anyone _wants_ to talk to Justin Hammer but yeah, I can do it. We’ll write it up at home and combine our sections in class?”

“Fine,” Luke said.

Which...kind of left them with nothing to talk about, Foggy realized, and twenty-three minutes still left in the period. Oops. “So what do you…” he started to say, only to realize Luke was dipping into his backpack and pulling out a battered paperback novel. “Oh. Is that for your English class?”

“Nope,” Luke said, and started to read.

Okay. Sure. Foggy could entertain himself. He had a biology quiz next period, he should probably study for that. He dug out his bio notes.

“...Can I help you?” Luke asked a minute later, and Foggy realized he’d been staring at Luke’s cheekbones instead of the page in front of him.

“Nope! Sorry! I’m good,” Foggy said, face flaming, and hunched over his notes.

He was definitely going to bomb this quiz.

*

Karen was still laughing at him by lunchtime.

“...and then he turned bright red and squeaked something and they didn’t say anything the whole rest of the period,” she said through her giggles.

“Thank you, Karen, you’re a true friend,” Foggy grumbled into his corned beef sandwich.

“I don’t think I know who Luke is,” said Matt, who probably thought that he wasn’t grinning obviously at Foggy’s misfortunes.

“The board said his name was Carl Lucas,” Foggy explained. “I kind of tried to ask what the deal was there but he didn’t really answer me.”

“Oh, okay, Carl Lucas is in my math class,” Matt said. “What’s the problem? He seems nice enough.”

“What, does your beauty-detecting radar not work on guys?” Foggy asked. Matt looked blankly at him. “He’s _so hot_ , Matt!”

At the next table, Hope van Dyne and her friends started tittering. Okay. That...that had probably been too loud.

Matt grinned wider. “So ask him to homecoming,” he suggested.

“Ooh, definitely do that so I can write an article about it,” Karen urged. “Do you want me to call you guys _Fluke_ or _Carlgy_ in the headline?”

Foggy scowled and snatched his extra pudding cup out of reach of Matt’s wandering fingers. “Oh, no you don’t, Murdock. Clearly only Josie really loves me. I’ll eat these somewhere I’m not being relentlessly mocked, _thank you_.”

“Foggy, come on!” Matt protested, but he and Karen were both still giggling.

Foggy huffed theatrically and marched off with a pudding cup in each hand. He wasn’t really mad, but he might as well let them get it out of their systems rather than endure their teasing for the rest of the period.

He’d just stepped into the hall, though, when a meaty hand pushed him none-too-gently up against the wall. “Hey, Nelson.”

Foggy looked up. This vertical pan was much less pleasant than the last one. “Fisk.” He glanced over Fisk’s shoulder. “Stryker.”

“Aw, you brought us both dessert,” Stryker said. “How thoughtful.”

Foggy rolled his eyes. “Knock it off, guys. Shaking me down for _pudding?_ What is this, third grade?” He did his best to keep his voice unimpressed, but inwardly he didn’t like his odds. Fisk and Stryker were two of the nastiest seniors in the school. Normally they were both loners, but if they were teaming up to pick on underclassmen - and Foggy wasn’t even that young, he was a junior, for Pete’s sake! - it didn’t look good for a tender little minnow like him.

He tried to shake Fisk’s hand off, but Fisk wasn’t moving. “I don’t like your tone,” Fisk said. “It strikes me as disrespectful. I don’t appreciate being disrespected.”

“Yeah, most people don’t. Kind of inherent in the whole disrespect thing,” Foggy said, because he had no control over his big mouth and apparently really wanted to get beaten up over pudding and semantics.

Fisk’s hand pushed harder and Foggy squeaked. “Keep talking,” Stryker said. “You want to bring us lunch every day for the rest of the semester? That can be arranged.”

“Oh come _on_ , what is this, _Grease?_ Are you T-Birds now? Do I have to sing a musical number to get you to leave me alone?” Foggy asked. “This bullying is so cliche. I’m bored. Two stars out of five, guys.”

“You want to see more stars?” Fisk asked, his free hand curling into a fist. Foggy shut his eyes and hoped he didn’t cry as Fisk leaned back - 

“Willis!”

Foggy opened one eye. Luke Cage had appeared out of nowhere and was leveling Stryker with a stare Foggy couldn’t read. Fisk stilled with his hand up, watching them. “Leave him alone, Willis.”

“This isn’t your business, Carl,” Stryker said.

“Yeah, you made it very clear you and I don’t have anything to talk about anymore,” Luke said. “Leave him alone anyway.” His impassive gaze turned on Fisk. “You too.”

Fisk let go of Foggy, but only to round on Luke. “You really want to start with both of us, Lucas? Do you think that will end well for you?”

“Long as it ends,” Luke said. Fisk and Stryker both took a step towards him -

“Bell’s about to ring,” Foggy gasped from where he was still pinned against the wall like Fisk’s hand was still there. His palms were sweating. “In three minutes the hallway will be full of students. If Luke doesn’t kick both of your asses by then that’s a lot of witnesses to earn you each another suspension. Or is it expulsion by now? Please tell me it’s expulsion.”

Fisk and Stryker glanced at each other, clearly wavering. “Run along, Willis,” Luke said softly. “Don’t make me tell your mama.”

“You keep her name out of your mouth,” Stryker snapped. “You’re gonna regret this, Carl - you and Goldilocks over there.”

Luke moved in front of Foggy, who tossed his hair with a sniff. Excuse _him_ for being a trendsetter in this backwater school.

Fisk checked his phone. “He’s right about the time. Come on, Stryker, we’ll settle this later.” He glowered at Foggy. “And we _will_ settle this.”

Stryker opened his mouth again, but Fisk tugged him down the hall and around the corner. Foggy sagged against the wall the minute they were out of sight. “Jesus,” he said. “Thanks. Pudding cup?”

Luke took the offered cup with a bemused expression. “You okay?”

“That probably shortened my life by a year, but yeah, I’m fine.”

“Don’t worry about them.” Luke’s hand was only on his shoulder a second, but it was big and warm and steadying. “I don’t really know Fisk, but Stryker’ll be too distracted by how pissed he is at me to bother coming after you again. They’ll probably leave you alone now.”

“I don’t know about that,” Foggy said, looking down the hall in the direction Fisk and Stryker had gone. “I was kinda thinking we should write about hazing instead of the student council elections. Suddenly seems a lot more important.”

Luke raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s just gonna tick them off more.”

“Yeah, well, they just ticked me off, so I think it’s their turn,” Foggy said.

For the first time, Luke smiled. It was a hell of a smile. Foggy was glad he was already leaning against the wall. “You’ve kinda got a mouth on you, Nelson.”

“So I’ve been told,” Foggy said, a little faint. “I don’t like bullies.”

“Yeah. Me neither,” Luke said, rubbing the back of his neck. His bicep was the size of Foggy’s thigh. “Okay, hazing it is. I work at Pop’s Barbershop after school until six, but...maybe we could work on the article after that?”

“Oh. Uh. Okay. That’s kind of late, though,” Foggy said.

“I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

“Oh. You drink coffee?” Foggy asked, impressed. He still chugged soda when he needed to wake up, like a _child_.

Luke’s smile widened. “No,” he said.

Foggy went pink. “ _Oh_ ,” he said for the third time.

After this article was done, he was buying Fisk and Stryker _flowers_.


End file.
